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New Aboriginal poster

We received a lovely new poster today on the theme of “Women’s Business”. It comprises a collection of wonderful photos of Aboriginal women, collected by Sue Kildea, a midwife who has been working on and researching Aboriginal health issues in the Northern Territory for some time now. It is a large poster which would grace the walls of any health centre - the full details will be in the new catalogue which will be out in January (and also on the web site at that time).

The arrival of this colourful chart started a spirited discussion about Aboriginal health issues amongst our office staff. One of the team has a friend (English) who, together with her husband, now lives in the Northern Territory as an accepted member of an Aboriginal group. She and her family live amongst the people and share their lifestyle completely - her job is teach them how to cut hair!

Another staff member recounted the story of trying to gather material for a newsletter on Aboriginal issues. When she contacted the ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) to ask how she could go about including some information and news items about the Aboriginal culture she was roundly abused by the person at the end of the phone - “you people think you can take what’s ours and just use it” etc in a very belligerent tone. Thoroughly shocked by this outburst, she apologised for asking and was then told “now you want to say sorry!!” She gave up at this point and has not attempted to talk about Aboriginal issues in any way since.

Aboriginal Health is a thorny and sensitive issue in Australia. It seems the more we try to help the worse conditions get and the records sow that in this very affluent country our native people have health outcomes that are equivalent to the worst of third world countries. Midwives like Sue Kildea have been working hard over many years to make some inroads into this appalling state of affairs and this new poster celebrates some of their achievements.

Posted by andrea at December 18, 2003 03:18 PM

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